Paper short abstract:

Market-oriented economic development and forest conservation are both corner-stones of Vietnam’s current state policies. The paper examines the social consequences of these twin processes on a particular indigenous society in the uplands of central Vietnam.

Paper long abstract:

Development and forest conservation are both corner-stones of Vietnam's current state policies towards its indigenous upland peoples who tend to live in the countries remaining rich forest areas.

Current forest policies, classifying all forest land into production forest aimed at industrial forest production and various types of protected forests excluding human forest use, increasingly enclose the indigenous upland population and dramatically reduce their access to traditionally used forest land. At the same time, state-development policies push for an all-out transformation of the local sufficiency-oriented economies towards market-oriented cash-crop production and small-scale agro-forestry. An important step in this direction is the devolution of forest land to households and the conversion of swidden land into heavily subsidized small-scale rubber-plantations and other forms of industrial tree plantations.

The paper examines the social consequences of these twin processes, seemingly opposed but unfolding side by side as parts of a single "sustainable-development package", on a particular indigenous society in the uplands of central Vietnam. It argues that the state policies engender growing inequalities and a progressive erosion of social cohesion in local communities as well as, seemingly paradoxically, accelerating environmental destruction and deepening poverty.